A Superior Covenant

Hebrews chapter 8, and we're in verse 10, but let's read the chapter to remind ourselves of the context, Hebrews chapter 8, and we'll read verses 1 through 13. Now this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord directed and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things as Moses divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second, because finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more. In that, he says, a new covenant he has made the first obsolete, now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. This whole section is a quote from Jeremiah chapter 31. So if you have your Bible open with you and you begin in verse 8 of Hebrews 8, you'll find that it's almost a word for word quote from Isaiah chapter 31. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. That's verse 31 of Jeremiah 31, verse 32. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. That last bit is not quoted, verse 33. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write in their hearts, and I will be their God, they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. You'll notice that in Jeremiah it says their sin, and in Hebrews it says their lawless deeds. But obviously those two things are the same, just different expressions of the same thing. So let's continue then in verse 10. We started verse 10 last week, and this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. So he's introducing the idea, or he has introduced the idea, of a new covenant, a better covenant. The problem with the old covenant, remember that the covenant was fine. The problem was that the people could not do what they were supposed to do. And so they made the covenant of no effect because of their sin, because of their inability to do what they were supposed to do. So the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. So the difference is that that which was external is now going to become internal. The law in the Old Testament was written on tablets of stone, and Moses wrote them down as we have them in the book of Exodus, and also again repeated in the book of Deuteronomy. So they were written down on tablets of stone, and then they were written down on parchment or papyrus probably. And so they were external to the people. They were in the hands of the priests. The people didn't have Bibles like we have today. So they didn't even have a Bible that would be on their nightstand. So it was something that was far away from them. They needed a priest to continually remind them of what the law said. And he's saying now it's going to be different, because no longer is the law going to be outside on tablets of stone and written on books, but the law is going to be written on your hearts. Attached to this idea, he speaks about the fact that he's going to remove the heart of stone, again reference to the tablets of stone, and he's going to give us a heart of flesh. Speaking of the fact that they were hard-hearted, when we get saved we get a heart that is soft towards God. And so I will write the laws, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. And so they will know instinctively what is right and what is wrong. Now remember that in Romans chapter 1, he speaks about the fact that the Gentiles do by nature the things of the law. So even unbelievers have a conscience which tells them the difference between right and wrong, and that if you go to tribes in remote areas that have never been exposed to the gospel or ever been exposed to the Bible or to Christianity in any way, you will find that they all have laws, and that those laws by and large mirror the Ten Commandments. They will all have laws against murder. There is no tribe—while there are murderous tribes, and I guess the worst of them are in L.A., but while there are murderous tribes in the world who love fighting and doing battle with other tribes, there is no single tribe in the world, and I don't think that one has ever been found, that sanctions murder, that you just go around just killing everybody else around you. You kill your enemies, but you don't kill your friends. And if you kill your friends, there are certain punishments against that. There are laws against stealing. There are laws against adultery. Many of the laws of the Ten Commandments, the Gentiles do. But he's not speaking about that. He's speaking about the things that bring us—remember, all of this has to do with bringing us into the presence of God. How do I get into the presence of God? Not just how do I stay out of trouble with God, but how do I meet with God? How do I come into His presence? And the next chapter, next week, we'll speak about the tabernacle, which again was the avenue that they had in the Old Testament to come into the presence of God. Again, the tabernacle was something external. You came there with your body. You came there physically. You made the sacrifice. You worshiped God by bowing down and waving your arms and things like that, which was part of the Old Testament worship. But in the New Testament, it's not about what we do physically. It doesn't matter whether you kneel or lie on the ground—that's not exactly a good thing—but as far as God is concerned, it doesn't matter whether you lie on the ground, whether you're sitting, kneeling, standing, jumping up and down, whether you're in the shower or whether you're in the church pews. God is interested in a spiritual communion with us. He wants to speak with us. He wants us to speak with Him, and it's at a spiritual level. It has very little to do with external stuff. It has very little to do with what we do with our bodies. And of course, you see the problem here is that a lot of modern worship and a lot of modern religion has to do with external stuff, and so bringing back all of those external things that we need to do—we've got to clap our hands, you've got to sway, you've got to wave your arms, you've got to jump up and down, you've got to do all of these things. That is Old Testament stuff. Jesus said that the true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. So He brings us into a spiritual relationship, and the laws are no longer external, but the laws are internal. Now, He says, I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. There will be a relationship between God and His people. Now, we say, well, didn't Israel have a relationship with God? And the answer, basically, is no. God continually stretched out His hands towards Israel, constantly wanted to draw them near. Remember, Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens? But you would not. So God reached out to Israel from the very beginning, from when He brought them out of Egypt, right up to the time of Jesus. God was constantly reaching out to Israel through the prophets and through the priesthood and through the sacrifices, through His Word. And He was saying to Israel, come and have a relationship with Me. But Israel refused to have a relationship with God. They were the odd ones who had a relationship with God. Remember, we spoke about this not so long ago in the context of the book of Hebrews, that God brings Israel to Mount Sinai. And this is like three months after they came out of Egypt, at the most, three months after they came out of Egypt. And God says to Moses, I want to speak to the people. I want them to know Me. And so Moses sanctifies the fast, and the people are prepared, and everything is done, everything is ready. And God begins to speak, and He speaks the ten words, the ten commandments. And immediately Israel says, no, we can't have God speak to us. He is too fearsome. We don't understand Him. Moses, you go and ask God what He has to say, and then you come and tell us. So Israel, when God physically reached out to them and set a date, made an appointment with them, and said, on this day, I'm going to come and speak to you. Obviously, God didn't descend from heaven, but He speaks from the cloud. Remember, God's presence was manifest in the cloud in the Old Testament. We spoke about that last week, about the tabernacle, how that cloud then descended on the tabernacle. So God says, He makes a date with them, and He says, now I'm going to speak to you. And Israel's response is no. We don't want you to speak to us. Moses can, you know, he can go and speak to you. And of course, we have the same problem today, is that Christians, God has opened a way, and He's saying here, I will have a relationship with Him. They'll be my people, I'll be their God. And yet, so many Christians are still doing the same thing today. They say, no, we'll pay the pastor. He can ask God what He has to say, and then He can come and tell us, just like they did with Moses. But so few Christians avail themselves of this wonderful blessing that is theirs of being able to have a real relationship with God. Not a secondhand relationship through Moses, or through the priesthood, or through anyone else, but a personal one-on-one relationship. You remember that immediately after that, Moses then pitches his tent outside of the camp, and it's called the tent of meeting, and God again extends an invitation, a formal invitation. Not the kind of invitations that we extend. We must do lunch sometime, which means absolutely nothing. But God says, no, if you want to come and speak to me, here's a place, here's a tent. Come and speak to me. And nobody goes, except for Moses and Joshua. And you remember that Moses would go, and the people of Israel, every man would stand at his tent door, and they would watch Moses going, having a relationship with God. And it says that Moses spoke with God, and God spoke with Moses as a man speaks with his friend. Moses had a real relationship with God. That opportunity was there for everyone else. And the only other one that availed themselves of that privilege, of that blessing, was Joshua. No wonder he became the man who was able to bring the people of Israel into the land and able to conquer the land and take possession of the land. Because in fact, while Moses had to go back and do his job in terms of judging Israel, Joshua spent all his time, it says, he never left the presence of God. And so God has been reaching out, and we see how that through the centuries, there's the odd prophet, there's the odd man here and there, who has a real relationship with God. At the time of David, it seems that nobody in the whole of the nation had a relationship with God, except for this young boy David and Samuel, who was the prophet at the time. And you remember that when David comes to the battle where they're facing Goliath, all of Israel were lying in the trenches, quaking and shivering in their boots because of this enemy, who was nothing before the Lord because they did not have a relationship with God. Saul had led them into this cold relationship. But David comes and he says, I know God, and I have a relationship with him, and God has been with me, and God will be with me as I face this giant. And of course, he takes the giant down. So this has always been God's desire, that he will have a relationship. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And as you know, I wonder about Christians today, that we are no different to Israel. How many people have a real relationship with God? Very, very few. And yet that's his desire. He'll put the laws in our heart. I spoke about this last week, and I'm not going to go over it again. But how many of us know what God requires of us? Or do we need to be forced by the leadership of the church or by something else to do the right thing? No, he's going to—the point that he's making here is that I'm going to change you. And if we are indeed part of the covenant, the new covenant, there must be a change. And this is the problem. If Christians, or so-called Christians, have to be forced by legalistic stuff, by fear of being exposed, by fear of church discipline, to do the right thing, to obey God, to obey his word, then there is a question as to whether they're indeed born again. Because one of the attributes of being born again is a new heart, and a heart that desires to please God. Nobody should be telling you, do the right thing. There should be a deep desire and a passion to say, I want to do the right thing. I know what I should be doing. Let me do the right thing. Let me not do that which is wrong. Now, then says, none of them will teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, know the Lord. For all shall know me. Now, I think I touched on this last week, but notice what he's saying. He's not saying there won't be teachers in the church, because we know in the New Testament—this is a verse that some people really like, those people who shun any kind of formal church, and say, well, you know, we don't have to go to church, or even if we do go to church, we just meet with other Christians in Starbucks or wherever, and, you know, that's because of this verse. No one will teach his neighbor. Everyone will know. Now, he is not by this saying that there is no need for teachers. The New Testament is clear that when he ascended on high, he gave to the church gifts, and he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the edifying of the saints. We see in the New Testament, right through the New Testament, there's Paul, and there's Timothy, and there's Titus, and there's Barnabas, and there's all of these men who are going around. And, of course, the twelve—Peter, and John, and those guys, Matthew—they're all going around, and they're teaching, and they're preaching the Word. So this does not do away with a need for teachers, and preachers, and evangelists, and those kinds of things. But what he is talking about here is that we will not need anyone to say, know the Lord. Know the Lord. So, those who are born again will know the Lord. It doesn't mean that we don't preach the gospel to those who are outside of the covenant, those who are not born again. We need to preach the gospel, and, of course, what is the gospel? Come to know Jesus. Come to know the Lord. But once we are in the covenant, once he has given us a new heart, we should, and we do, know him. And so, this does not do away with teachers, but it again speaks about the fact that if we are born again, there is that very real relationship with him, with the Lord. And remember, Paul speaks about this, and he says that by the Spirit we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit tells me—and I don't like that word instinctively—but the Spirit tells me deep down inside that he is my Father. I don't need someone to tell me he is my Father, because I know I've been born into his family. And so, we don't need anyone to tell us, know the Lord, for all will know me. Now remember, he is not saying—this is not universalism. This doesn't mean everybody is saved. Who is the all? Those who are part of the covenant. He says, I will make a covenant with them, and this will be the parts of the covenant. And so, those who are part of the covenant. Now remember, it gets a little tricky here, because if we go back, verse 10 says, for this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days. And a little bit earlier, higher up in the chapter, he says, and with Judah. So does this only apply to Israel? No, it does not only apply to Israel, it applies to those who are part of the new covenant. Remember, the old covenant was with Israel. If you wanted to be part of the covenant, you had to become a Jew to fall under that covenant. The new covenant is not with Israel, but the new covenant is with the church, if you will, with believers. And so, Jew and Gentile form part of the new covenant. And so, this applies to everyone who is born again. And so, those who are saved, those who are born again, will know the Lord. Will know the Lord. And I think that he's speaking more about, he's saying something more than just, they'll know about him. Again, I don't know the percentage, but probably 70, 80% of Americans know about God. They certainly know about his name when they want to curse, OMG, there's almost no one that doesn't use that statement. So, people know about God. He's not talking about knowing him, it's about knowing him. Knowing him. It's one thing to know about somebody, it's another thing to know that person. And so, all will or shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. And so, this does not discriminate between those who are intelligent and those who are not. Between those who are rich and those who are poor. All will know me, from the least important to the greatest. From the youngest to the oldest. And so, this is a wonderful blessing also. You don't have to be 70 years old to know the Lord. A child can know the Lord. And so, it's important for us to know him, and I'm not going to emphasize that again because we're going to run out of time. But here is one of the other promises and benefits of the covenant. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. Now notice again the very important word. What is the most important word in that sentence? For. And I'm sure that most people skip over that word. So, why does he say for? Why? Because. Obviously the word for, because. Remember the context. Everyone will know me because I will be merciful and I will forgive them. We cannot know God unless we have been forgiven. That stands to reason, and yet we don't often think about that clearly. Why can we not know him if we have not been forgiven? Because God cannot have fellowship with unrighteousness. There is no fellowship between light and darkness. There is no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness. God is righteous and God is holy. And so, if you are unholy, if you're not born again, you cannot have a relationship with God. It just doesn't work. Now, I know a lot of people pray, our father which art in heaven, and say, well, he's our father. Remember, Israel made the same mistake. And they said, we're sons of Abraham, and God is our father. And Jesus says, no, Abraham is not your father. You may be ethnically Israelites, but in fact, you're your father, the devil. Why? Because they did the deeds of the devil. They did what he did. And so, our relationship is predicated on forgiveness. We cannot come into his presence. Remember the tabernacle, we're going to go through the tabernacle in a bit more detail next time. But remember that the very first thing as you came into the tabernacle, to come into the presence of God, was the altar of sacrifice. That is where the sin had to be dealt with. You could not go into God's presence unless you had made the sacrifice, and unless the sins had been washed away. Once that is done, then the priest could go the next step and wash in the labor, and then they could come into the presence of God. The same thing is true here. This is what he is speaking about here. So, they will know me. I will be their God. They will be my people. But that cannot happen unless we have been to the altar. And remember the altar in the tabernacle speaks of the cross, speaks of Calvary. And unless we have been to Calvary and our sins have been washed away, we cannot come into the presence of God. The law actually has a number of rules that deal with the eventuality of an unclean person coming into the presence of God in the tabernacle in the Old Testament. It was a severe, it was a serious thing. And we referenced a couple of times now King Uzziah, who went into the holy place and burnt sacrifice. And immediately God struck him and he became leprous. And so it was a very serious thing to come into God's presence if you had not been cleansed, if you were not right. And so the same thing applies to today. There are so many people who want a relationship with God. They go to church on Sundays, they read their Bible, they do this, they do that. And they say, well, I want to have a relationship with God. But you cannot have a relationship with him because he's not going to have a relationship with you unless your sins have been dealt with, unless your sins have been washed away and he has made you a new creature and your heart has been changed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and unless his laws have been written upon your heart. You see, it's a package deal. You can't have the relationship without the new heart. You can't have the relationship without being forgiven. But this is a wonderful blessing. Now, remember again, the contrast between the New Testament and the Old Testament. The Old Testament could never wash away sins, all of those sacrifices, and we're going to come to that in the next few chapters. None of those sacrifices could permanently remove sin. Sin would be almost like a stain. We have a stain on the staircase in the house, and it will wash it, but a few weeks later, it just comes back up again. And that was the problem with the sin in the Old Testament. You could cover it, but it was still there. It wasn't going to be dealt with until Jesus died on the cross. But Jesus, having died, now made that once-for-all sacrifice that the sins could be washed away. And so, we have what they did not have. So, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. Now, on what basis is God merciful to us? Again, these are basics, but we must remind ourselves of these things, because unfortunately, we forget. God cannot be merciful just on the basis of feeling sorry for us. In other words, what I'm saying is, God looks at mankind and says, well, they're a mess. They're sinful. They can't have a relationship with me because of their sin. Let me just be merciful to them and wipe away the sin. God cannot do that. The reason he can't do that is because it is not just. We see over and over and over, just about every time we turn on the news these days, people crying out for justice. My friend was killed. My son was killed. This one was killed. And the DA has let them free. Or they're not being incarcerated, in spite of them having done these things. Everyone wants to see justice, wants to see righteousness. And God is the supreme righteous one. And therefore, God cannot just let us walk. You see, that's what we want is we want to just walk and say, well, just forget about it. God cannot do that because sin must be dealt with. And so how does he deal with a problem? He puts that sin upon his son and he punishes his son. And so Jesus pays the price so that God can now forgive us and be merciful. So it's not just that God feels sorry for us and says, okay, just let's forget about it. That's what we do oftentimes. But there's no real forgiveness. The issue hasn't been dealt with. Let's just sweep it under the carpet. God cannot sweep it under the carpet. The sin has to be washed away. And it's washed away through the blood of the Lord Jesus. And on that basis, he is merciful to their unrighteousness. And their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more. This is a wonderful promise. I think that if you have a sensitive conscience, you will always to some extent be plagued by the things of the past. Last night, I woke up in the night and I remembered some stuff I did a long time ago. But God doesn't remember. He has forgotten them. And we must reckon what God reckons. If God says it's forgiven, it's forgiven. It's gone. It's dealt with. And God says, I don't remember them. Now, here's the problem. And I think that, I hope that, at the same time, I'm hoping that we walk in the liberty of forgiveness. But I'm also hoping that, in a sense, we are sensitive enough to recognize our failures of the past. But in that process, we come to God and we say, well, you know, that thing I did back there. God says, what are you talking about? As I'm getting older, I'm forgetting things. I have to be reminded. But God cannot be reminded. Because not only has he forgotten, he says, their sins and their lawlessness, their iniquities, I will remember no more. Not only has God forgotten them, but they have been expunged. They do not exist. They do not exist. The record has been cleared. If you've ever been in a situation where you're, you made a mistake and you wiped out your hard drive. A few years ago, I lost all my pictures. I was converting to a new computer and somehow I didn't copy my pictures across. And they're gone. They're gone. They're never gonna come back again. And God has wiped our sins away. They're gone. We had to recycle some or take some old computers that we had here to recycling. And I took them and I drilled holes in the hard disks. There is nothing that you can get out of that anymore. God has drilled holes in his hard disk, in his hard drive. He does not remember. It's been washed away. If indeed they have been washed away. So their sins and their lawlessness, I will remember no more. When we remember the things that we have done, we must reckon what God reckons. We must see it the way that God sees it. And we must say, yes, I messed up, but Jesus has forgiven me. It's been wiped away. God no longer remembers it. Let's not try to remind God of the things that he has forgotten. All right, now verse 13. Last verse, in that he says, it's a new covenant. He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. He made the first covenant obsolete. I think it's a word we understand somewhat today. Again, in the context of computers and cell phones as in as clearing out and getting things in order. We have old cell phones, flip phones and things like that. They are obsolete. They still work, I guess, if you plug them in and charge them up, they could still do something. I don't know what they could do, but they're obsolete. Why are they obsolete? Because there are new things. Now Jason and Angela haven't caught up yet, but they'll get there. Angela's caught up, Jason hasn't. But there's a thing called a smartphone now. And it effectively has made the flip phone obsolete. We now have Windows. I don't think anyone here remembers DOS. You remember DOS? A little bit. DOS is obsolete. If you don't know what DOS is, that proves what obsolescence is. It doesn't exist anymore. It has no value anymore. There is something better. There is something newer. And so the old covenant is obsolete. And the same way as those old phones, we just have to find the opportunity to take them somewhere so we can get rid of them. He is saying what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So it is obsolete. Therefore, it needs to be done away with. It's no good keeping old things that don't work anymore. And of course, this is the whole problem of the letter to the Hebrews. The problem is that they wanted to leave the new and go back to the old. But the old is obsolete. The old doesn't work anymore. It never worked well. It didn't work well, not because God made a mistake, but because the people couldn't do their part. Now, here's the sad thing, and I'm almost through. The sad thing is that there are many Gentile Christians today who want to go back to the old covenant. We call them Hebrew roots people. They're obsessed with the old covenant. They're fascinated by the old covenant. They keep the feasts. They keep the Sabbaths. They keep all of the rules and all of the laws of the Old Testament. But there is no point, and I'm sorry you don't understand the analogy, but Dost was a terrible thing. It was very, very hard to work with. It was very limited. And there is no way I want to go from Windows back to Dost. And even before that, I had a different system. And yet there are people who want to go back to the old covenant, when what we have is so far superior. Now, I know it's not a problem in this church, but there may be those who are watching who get caught up in these things. And I know these are things that divide many churches all over the world, because Christians get fascinated by the old stuff. I'm not saying that the old covenant, the Old Testament has no value. Of course, we need to understand the old so that we can appreciate the new. And the same way as you don't understand how easy and how wonderful Windows is, not that I am a great fan of Microsoft, but whenever I complain about Windows, I remember the old days. And I remember how limited that was. And I say, yep, I'm happy. Now, Windows has its flaws. God's new covenant has no flaws. It is wonderful. And yet we want to go back to the old. You say, well, how's that possible? I don't know. But the letter is written exactly to people who had that problem, who wanted to go back to the old. And that same problem has resurfaced in the last 30, 40 years in evangelical Christianity all over the world. So you have entire messianic congregations. Messianic congregations are not Jewish Christians who worship in a New Testament style. These are Gentiles who worship in the Old Testament style. No, we have something far superior. They had the shadow, we have the reality. They had a covenant which was not able to make them perfect. We have a covenant that's able to make us perfect. They had sacrifices and a priesthood that was able to bring them into the tabernacle on earth. We have a high priest and a sacrifice that brings us into the very presence of God in heaven itself. And yet some people want to go back. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you, Lord, for the new covenant that you've so wonderfully given to us. Lord, we remember that it didn't come free, but it came because Jesus died for us on the cross of Calvary, and that that last night before he was betrayed and before he was crucified, he said, this is the blood of the new covenant. Lord, that that covenant was bought by his blood. And Father, we pray that we may appreciate the privilege that is ours of coming into your presence, of having a real relationship with you on one basis. Lord, that we may not be like Israel who stand afar off, but that we may be like Moses and Joshua who drew near to your presence. And Lord, we pray that we may not be those who long for the old things of Judaism. But Lord, that we may look forward to the fulfillment of these wonderful things that you have for us in the New Testament. Lord, help us to not remember the things that you have forgotten. Help us, Lord, to walk in the liberty that we have in Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name. Go with us, keep us, and protect us. In Jesus' name I pray.